in the news..

If you listen too hard to pessimistic pundits, you can get all lathered up over the risks of stagflation - slower growth and higher prices. Don't go there. This is not the 1970s. Money is sounder, tax rates are lower, productivity and profits are much higher, and world trade is more open. Today's technology-streamlined and deregulated economy is not inflation-prone. (Larry Kudlow, NY SUN)

A major study by the National Association of Manufacturers in 2003 showed that even during the most recent recession, 80% of manufacturers had a moderate to serious shortage of production workers, machinists and craftworkers. The group predicts that manufacturers will need as many as 10 million new skilled workers by 2020, in part to replace the aging boomers who make up a large part of the 14 million manufacturing jobs today. (WSJ)

SEATTLE -- As Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) prepares to release the next generation of its Xbox gaming console in several weeks, Chairman Bill Gates said he believes the company is in a position to compete for the No. 1 spot with Sony Corp. (SNE) and its Playstation franchise. (WSJ)

In a recent interview, General Norman Schwartzkopf was asked if he thought there was room for forgiveness toward the people who have harbored and abetted the terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks on America. His answer was classic Schwartzkopf. The General said, “I believe that forgiving them is God's function. OUR job is to arrange the meeting."

Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned North Korea Monday that the U.S. had "significant" capability in the Pacific region to deter the Stalinist state's nuclear ambitions.

North Korea, meanwhile, denounced President Bush on Saturday as a "hooligan" and said it doesn't expect a solution to the standoff over its nuclear program during his tenure. The escalating rhetoric was followed Sunday by a test-firing of a North Korean short-range missile into the Sea of Japan (PJStar.com)

WASHINGTON – Former CIA chief James Woolsey affirms the work of a special commission investigating the threat of a nuclear-bomb generated electromagnetic pulse attack on the U.S. by rogue states or terrorists and is urging the country to take steps necessary to protect against the potentially devastating consequences. (By Joseph Farah WorldNetDaily.com)

Affirmative action produces no concrete benefits for minority students and actually has several harmful effects, according to a new report by the Cato Institute.” Recent research shows that college admissions preferences do not offer even the practical benefits claimed by their supporters," writes Marie Gryphon, a lawyer and policy analyst with the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom. (NEWS MAX)

Mr. Volcker's weekend phone calls did not sit well with legislators. "We should have an opportunity to talk" to the two investigators, Senator Coleman, a Republican of Minnesota, told CNN yesterday. "I am very disturbed that they [the United Nations] assert some kind of immunity." (BENNY AVNI, NY SUN)

A US senator who has repeatedly called for the resignation of UN chief Kofi Annan over the Iraq oil-for-food scandal has raised the prospect that tapes may exist directly implicating the Secretary-General in wrongdoing. (David Nason, the Australian)

Charles Pasqua,( Union for Europe of the Nations Group, Chairman) a former French minister of interior, has emerged as one of the highest-ranking targets of the widening investigations into the Iraq oil-for-food scandal, writes Claudio Gatti. (FT)

The deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mahmoud Al-Sayyid Ahmad Al-Habib, made a similar appearance on Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV, on April 8, 2004, and said, "The truth is that the resistance, whether in Iraq or in Palestine ... defends the nation's honor ... Therefore, the issue ... martyrdom (i.e., suicide) operations carried out by boys and girls, and also the operations carried out by the Iraqi resistance - these redeem self-confidence and hope, because a nation that does not excel at the industry of death does not deserve life." (NY SUN)

CAIRO, Egypt -- Followers of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would attack the White House or the Vatican if their leader chooses to target those sites, the al-Qaida in Iraq's deputy chief purportedly said in an Internet statement posted Monday. The written statement, signed in the name of Abu Abdel-Rahman al-Iraqi, also threatened to attack Iraqi security forces and officials, including incoming Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite Muslim. (NEWS MAX)